Susan Downey and ‘The Miracle that saved Robert Downey Jr.’
Robert Downey Jr.‘s meteoric fall from grace – owing to his excessive drug use – has been well documented. Equally, his rise from the ashes of addiction has also left the actor in high esteem amongst his audiences and peers alike.
Downey Jr. was highly regarded during his early days as an actor, and he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1992 biopic Chaplin. However, towards the end of the 1990s, Downey Jr. was arrested several times for possession of heroin and cocaine. His addiction to drugs had spiralled out of control.
He spent much time in the late 1990s in rehabilitation programs, but most of these efforts were unsuccessful, and, as a result, many brushes with the law followed. He stated: “It was my lowest point in terms of addictions. At that stage, I didn’t give a fuck whether I ever acted again.”
After being fired from Ally McBeal in the early 2000s, Downey Jr. joined a court-ordered rehabilitation program again, yet this time it worked. Whilst a program such as this evidently aided his return to a highly-successful career as an actor, the thing that really helped him get through the difficulty of addiction was his relationship with the film producer Susan Levin, now Susan Downey.
The pair had met on the set of Gothika, and after an initial romance blossomed, Levin told Downey Jr. that he could either have the drugs or he could have her. Levin had initially been unaware and a bit naïve as to drug addiction in general, let alone Downey Jr.’s raging case.
Eventually, Levin told Downey Jr, “This isn’t gonna work. I made it clear that to stay with me; nothing could happen.” This ultimatum somehow worked where previous efforts to save the actor had failed. Following Levin’s request, he stopped at a Burger King near the Pacific Coast Highway and threw his drugs into the sea.
Levin added: “I think he saw what we had. There was something magical there, something we couldn’t put our finger on. He always says that we became this third thing when we got together — something that neither of us could have become by ourselves — and I think that’s true.”
Later Downey Jr, would comment on his love for Levin: “There’s something about her that is so pure and right. But then there’s the other stuff too, the shadowy side of her that is delightful and that she shows only to me.” Levin has since become known as ‘The Miracle that saved Robert Downey Jr.’.
